Denna explorativa undersökning har sökt efter ett svar till frågeställningen: vilka faktorer är det i en science fiction-miljö som gör att den kan upplevas som trovärdig?För att undersöka detta har en utredning utförts genom diverse litteraturstudier om vad trovärdighet och realism kan vara. Sturken och Cartwright (2009) menar på att den tidpunkt som betraktaren befinner sig i, och den tidpunkt som den betraktade produkten är skapad under, påverkar uppfattningen om produktens antagna realism. Det var från denna teori som arbetet hade sin grund och utgångspunkt. För att undersöka detta argument i en 3D-miljö delades området in i tre olika kategorier: Ljus, form och föremål.Utifrån detta skapades tre varianter av en och samma scen där de tre olika områdena representerades. Från dessa scener renderades tre filmklipp om 12 sekunder vardera. Sedan utfördes fem kvalitativa intervjuer där deltagarna fick se klippen och svara på frågor. Målgruppen fokuserade på personer som konsumerade mycket film, spel och media. Undersökningen skedde med kvalitativa intervjuer.Analysen och slutsatsen visar på att Sturken och Cartwrights (2009) teori om att betraktarens bakgrund påverkar uppfattningen om ett verk. Från de tre områden som undersöktes i den här rapporten så bedömdes ljussättningen och textureringen ha störst påverkan på trovärdigheten. Formvarianten bedömdes som mest trovärdig.

In this collection of short stories, I abduct experiences from my own life and take them on an imaginative journey. I experiment with elements of structure and point of view, often incorporating the magical or surreal to amplify the narrator’s internal landscape. As demonstrated in the title story, “Almost Astronauts,” these stories all deal with a sudden and sometimes destructive shift in the narrator’s perspective.

Ontic structural realism is the view that structure is fundamental. This view is at odds with a long-standing tradition in metaphysics which takes the fundamental structure of reality to consist of individuals. Steven French argues in favour of an eliminativist ontic structural realism which is supposed to eliminate individuals, as well as other objects, from the category of fundamentalia. There have also been more moderate attempts where 'non-individuals' are encompassed in the framework. In this paper, I make two interconnected claims. Firstly, that any moderate version of ontic structural realism is too weak to be included in the ontic structural realism familiy since the view fails to satisfy the motivations for employing any kind of ontic structural realism in the first place. Secondly, that if we want to formulate an ontic structural realist view that delivers on the claim that there are no fundamentalia apart from structure we will not find a satisfying view in French's oeuvre.

Background. The most common method of generating realistic trees is by using a non-interactive and fully automatic algorithm, however, an interactive method can create realistic results as well. In an effort to show the potential of an interactive method, this thesis proposes a method of generating realistic-looking trees interactively and evaluating their level of perceived realism. Objectives. To evaluate the realism, trees generated by an interactive script, rendered in equal conditions in a game engine, need to be evaluated through a user study. Methods. A tool was implemented in Maya 2022 using PyMel, that can generate trees interactively, in different levels of geometric resolution. Through a user study with a single stimulus setup, the trees were evaluated by students at Blekinge Institute of Technology. Results. The data extracted from the stimulus testing show that all categories of trees created for this study receive a passing grade of realism for video games. What is shown is also that trees categorized as Large have a higher level of perceived realism. A higher level of detail adds to the realism factor. Conclusion. It has been demonstrated that an interactive method can create sufficiently realistic looking trees for a static video game setting. A higher level of detail is shown to increase the level of perceived realism. This thesis concludes by identifying future research and improvements to the methods used for this study.

Background. In the pursuit of realism in rendering, a feature that may get overlooked is the sky and atmosphere—especially the consumer who might suspect that something is off without identifying it. A critical aspect of sky rendering is the color that should be dynamic with the time of day to be realistic. With multiple ways of rendering a sky and atmosphere, it is unclear which method best suits the circumstance. Objectives. The objective of this study was to make that decision clearer with both the visual aspect and the realism. It was also crucial that performance was not affected too heavily by the techniques. Methods. As the first objective can be subjective, we decided to ask several people through a survey to get a more objective answer. In the survey, we presented the participants with two images of identical scenes where the only difference between them was the method of rendering the sky. We then asked them which picture they thought was the most aesthetically pleasing and which they thought was the most realistic. The second part of the study was to test the performance of the techniques. We recorded the average frame time through a C\# script over all of the scenes. Results. When using the settings we established, the Physically-based atmosphere scored lower in both realism and aesthetics in the first visual test but scored higher in realism in all of the scenarios for the second visual test. Both the average frame rate and frame time did end up in favor of the Physically based atmosphere. Conclusions. The outcome of this study was surprising, we had thought that the Physically-based atmosphere would score higher in both realism and aesthetics. The performance of the Physically based atmosphere method proved to be much more optimized than the Unity procedural skybox than we would have thought.

Throughout history, the world has witnessed the rise and fall of great powers, but they have not been repeated in the same context. Today, the world is witnessing the emergence of Asian powers, which is China in the presence of an environment that is not characteristic of history, which is globalization, with the United States as the hegemony of globalization. In this study, we highlight the three variables (globalization, American hegemony, and China's emergence) and how the three variables can be understood under the theories of international relations (realism - constructivism). Globalization has helped prolong the life of American hegemony, but China's overpopulation prevents China from seeking new sources of state survival and preserving its interests, as it could lead to a possible military confrontation with the dominant power.

Humans use creativity and manual dexterity to create things, usually in a labor-intensive process. Procedural content generation (PCG) is an approach where computers do most of the manual work of creating virtual objects, while a human leads the creative process. One problem with PCG is that created objects tend to look too perfect and artificial, leading to research into simulating the aging process of created virtual objects. Simulating the growth of living organisms such as lichens on existing virtual objects has been a focus of research. Most previous techniques lack a clear evaluation of the realism of the results. In this thesis, a lichen growth simulation is implemented and evaluated in terms of perceived realism. Specifically, the target of the simulation is lichen growth on horizontal stone surfaces represented using a set of textures. The lichen growth simulation is slow but robust and flexible, capable of generating a wide range of output textures. 75 participants were recruited among university students and video game industry professionals, asked to compare the realism of lichens generated with different parameter settings. The investigated parameters are the scale of the lichens, the compactness of the lichens, and the number of lichen clusters (density). Participants perceived surfaces with a dense or medium-dense cover of small scale, semi-compact lichen clusters as the most realistic, while surfaces with a sparse cover of large scale, very compact or very lacy lichen clusters were perceived as the least realistic. The lichens perceived as the most realistic are also among the most computationally expensive to produce. This outcome tells us that there is a trade-off between realism and simulation time in the lichen growth simulation. The simulation is able to generate a wide range of lichen appearances, though the speed of the simulation can be greatly improved in multiple ways. / Människor använder kreativitet och manuell färdighet för att skapa saker, vanligtvis i en arbetsintensiv process. Procedurell innehållsgenerering (eng. PCG) är ett tillvägagångssätt där datorer gör majoriteten av det manuella arbetet i skapandet av virtuella objekt, och en människa leder den kreativa processen. Ett problem med PCG är att de skapade objekten tenderar att ha ett för nytt och artificiellt utseende, vilket har lett till forskning kring att simulera åldrandeprocessen för virtuella objekt. Forskning har bland annat fokuserat på att simulera tillväxten av levande organismer såsom lavar på existerande virtuella objekt. Flera tidigare tekniker saknar en tydlig evaluering av resultatens realism. I denna studie implementeras en lavtillväxtsimulering som evalueras med avseende på upplevd realism. Simuleringens mål är specifikt att simulera lavar på horisontella stenytor representerade av en uppsättning texturer. Simuleringen är långsam men robust och flexibel, och kapabel till att generera ett brett omfång av resultat. 75 deltagare rekryterades bland universitetsstudenter och bland arbetare i datorspelsindustrin, och ombads jämföra realismen hos lavar genererade med olika parameterinställningar. De undersökta parametrarna är skalan på lavarna, kompaktheten på lavarna och antalet lavar (densitet). Deltagarna upplevde att ytor med hög och mellanhög densitet av småskaliga semikompakta lavar var mest realistiska, medan ytor med låg densitet av storskaliga kompakta eller mycket utspridda lavar upplevdes som minst realistiska. De lavar som upplevdes vara mest realistiska är också bland de beräkningsmässigt dyraste att generera. Detta resultat visar att det finns en avvägning mellan realism och simuleringstid i lavtillväxtsimuleringen. Simuleringen kan generera ett brett omfång av lavutseenden, men simuleringens snabbhet kan förbättras på flera sätt.

The critical preface, "Learning to Break the Rules" discusses workshop rules as guidelines, as well as how and why I learned to break them. The creative portion of this thesis is made up of eight short stories: "The Many Incarnations of Blazer Chief," "Anna's Monsters," "The Pecan Tree's Daughter," "When the Seas Emptied," "The Umbrella Thief," "How to Forget," "Fracture," and "Stealing Dreams."

Elias och Leonora blir sammanförda som av en osynlig kraft. Båda har sina skäl att inte inleda en relation, men de blir motvilligt förälskade i varandra. En förälskelse de inte ens erkänner för sig själva. Under ytan sker dock en dold kommunikation, på flera plan, som de har svårt att värja sig mot. Där upplevs och uttrycks en empati och kärlek som de inte riktigt förstår eller kan styra. En kärlek som lever sitt eget liv. Oavsett avstånd. Denna text är en del av slutet på ett romanprojekt.

Detta arbete utforskar hur två olika 3D-animerade karaktärer upplevs baserat på hur den visuella stilen blandas med animationsstilen, och ifall en sådan blandning kan orsaka negativa intryck. För att besvara detta har en realistisk och en stiliserad 3D-modell animerats i både sina egna och den andras animationsstil. Den realistiska stilen är baserad på motion capture-inspelningar, medan den stiliserade har överdrivna och elastiska fysiska egenskaper. Dessa animationer användes sedan i en kvalitativ undersökning med intervjuer. Resultaten pekade mot att den realistiska modellen upplevdes som minst attraktiv i rörelse, och gav obehagliga intryck när den försökte röra sig stiliserat. Den stiliserade modellen fick bättre respons och ansågs röra sig mer naturligt. Dessa resultat stämmer överens med Mori’s (1970/2012:99) teorier om den kusliga dalen. Utifrån resultatet föreslås slutligen vidare utveckling av arbetet som innefattar större omfång av bidragande variabler både från genomförandet och från undersökningen.